Alice Huxley. That was the name of his sister. As he regained a sense of awareness, that was the first thing he remembered because that voice was the one that pulled him back. He didn't open his eyes yet, just kept them closed. Alice was two years younger then him and would try and become an initiate at eighteen. There were magi's in the family, many of them, but no one ever became a magi immediately. Most of society never even became an initiate. They just had hopes for their children and continued holding onto that fading hope even as their kids turned into working adults who provided manual labor to the city or consumer industry.
The smell of the city hit him next. It was a foreign smell. It was a familiar one as well, as though he had lived here his entire life. Fuel. It wasn't gasoline but he heard the rumbling of an engine and smell the exhaust fumes. The fuel was presumably part of it but it didn't smell like the type of fuel he remembered. It smelled clean, aromatic, refined. He opened his eyes, unable to suppress the curiosity. It was a girl, not a car.
"Brother. You're finally awake. How are you?"
The girl smiled. Her perfect teeth showed, a ray of dazzling light trying to stand out in a city of perpetual hope. He wondered if it was actually her teeth he saw or the blinding lights behind her, so blinding that it beat out the sun. It was impossible for teeth to be that clean. He couldn't adjust his vision so he turned in a different direction. Saw more people. A middle-aged man, clean on the beard but the years didn't hide themselves. A petite but not that small woman was holding the hanging arm, smiling back at him. She wore a dress and a sweater on top. He wore a suit and tie. His sister jeans and t-shirt. The man held a card with printed words on it.
Backstage Pass
Element AxE Examination
Huxley Family, Max 3 Visitors
Element AxE was a familiar name to him. He previously lived in a village from ancient times. That was what the world called it. The previous era was known as the Imperial Era. Three densely concentrated human hubs contained the strongest experts and their human subordinates. The unequal distribution left a large ratio of the population living in poor conditions. Towns were previously cities whose experts left for greater opportunities. These cities degraded because humans weren't capable of much and were overrun by wild beasts and other strange invasions. Abandoned cities further away became villages that regressed back into the primitive area. The most remote cities were where a strange event known as Element AxE was the strongest. It preyed on the weak. It wanted to control everything and the experts easily rejected their domineering hosts. Thus it became a war of the Elements versus the Experts.
Who was stronger? Nobody knew because there were no records of anything. Only a catastrophic event that wiped out all of humanity, native or not. Element AxE was gone. It vanished or left or was defeated. Whereabouts were unknown and no one cared about it because no one existed. But then humanity repopulated from the ashes of the old. Instead of returning to the olden era of pseudo royalty and false kings, electricity and metal interacted in a strange way. People discovered Element AxE in a different form and a whole economy was created around it. Element AxE Examination sent people back through time using their bloodline. Element AxE was a bloodline derivation process that seek to bring back a powerful phenomena. As for the calamity that came along with it, they believed that technology could utilize it for the advancement of mankind. The calamity referred to the major disasters that led to the third rebuild of modern civilization.
The planet had been wiped out three times since the Imperial Era. The other two times were due to lack of knowledge on what happened in the Imperial Era. There were enough records from the ruins to successfully suppress the previous incarnation of Element AxE. It took over weak minded folks, turning them into Elements. To counter that, technology was used to suppress, then merged with and carefully cultured and transformed into what was known as a Magi. However, Magi's were volatile and most people combusted into flames, ice, lightning, and other tragedies of nature. Element AxE of old and new both stood for Automatic Transformation of the Elements, but the context of each was wildly different. Old AxE referred to a mindless host. New AxE referred to the active utilization of Element AxE.
To solve the issue of combustion, Element AxE was massive diluted by people with intense affinity towards it. Affinity was referring to what was described as natural immunity. The host didn't become mindless but the invader did instead. Four weeks or one month. That was how long it took for the first accident to occur, where a Magi was able to apply Element AxE in a beneficial or productive way. A road had been damaged by a terrorist. Bombs were used and improperly detonated leading to the criminals arrest. A Magi used Element AxE to repair the road and strengthen it. The result wasn't seen until another desperate citizen detonated a bomb intentionally. The road suffered no damage and instead rebounded the damage, killing the person.
Magi's were instantly elevated to a high position, nearly as high as the elected city officials with much greater benefits afforded by the city mayor. Their most common request, which they were obligated to take, were to subdue or kill dangerous criminals that posed a high risk to law enforcement. Some Magi's figured out how to run fast, others fly, and a few teleport. The more impossible the application, the more skilled the Magi was perceived to be. Eventually, increasingly complex applications of Element Axe created a new classification of Magi known as Warlocks, equal in status to City Governors and superseding City Councils.
However, it was hard to tell the difference between a Magi and a Warlock. The latter was able to perform complicated sequences only under high stress situations instead of at will or with enough dedication and focus. To better study the matter, Warlocks created a method to identify high performing Magi's early on. A Magi would easily be able to perform 'magic tricks'. A Warlock could instead travel back into the past of their bloodline and experience life in the Imperial Era, well before the calamity struck. The whole matter would be so realistic that when the participant came back, it would feel like they were forced into a new world.
Adam Huxley was dazed. It was his own memory that he recalled just now and he trusted himself. It didn't come out of nowhere but something he believed deep down, but at the same time, hesitated on believing it. After all, he had been living in a village his entire life and now, he was telling himself that it was supposed to be so realistic that it would feel as though he would never see his family again. The fact that he aged four years in the process made the disconnect easier to relate to.
"Brother. It's okay. You should feel scared right now. It'll pass with time. I'll probably be the same way as well"
Those words of reassurance did not provide anything. It was like an abductor coaxing his victim. How could he feel at ease listening to those words. If his real family were here, maybe he would feel more comfortable. Still, he feel a sense of bonding with these three people that he felt with his true family. That meant that deep down, it was probably true, but he didn't want to believe it. As far as he knew, this was a foreign place, not his real home.
"Guests. I understand how you feel right now. To help with the transition, please don't resist this calming wave. It's created by a group of ten warlocks who have your best interests in mind"
A voice that sounded almost like a parental figure echoed across the sky. It penetrated his ears and rocked his brain. He felt an arm wrap around his body and hold him like a child desperate to learn about the world. He felt vulnerable and exposed but at the same time safe. As an invisible force landed on him, alarm bells went off in his head. He remembered the voice he heard in the void. It came back again, telling him to come back. It was like cold water had been splashed on him. Everything about the situation was right, except the situation he was in. The memories were true. The family was real. The era of the Imperial was indeed gone. He exploded out of his trance, yelled, and punched out not at his sister or his family but the voice that had entranced him in a dangerous game.
(I reject the false reality and only trust myself)
He shouted a phrase telepathically and in an unknown language but it broadcast throughout his surroundings, split the skies, and collapsed the world in conjunction with his punch. Mirrors suddenly appeared around him, cracking and crashing as the space beyond revealed itself in all its totality.